With Friends Like These...
It is immediately preceded by Innocence Lost, and is a continuation of those events. Background See: Innocence Lost Objectives *Kill one of the captives *Speak with Astrid *Enter the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary *Speak with Astrid Walkthrough After the Innocence Lost quest has been completed, a courier will appear and give the Dragonborn a note with the imprint of a black hand and the words "We Know" written beneath it. The courier generally takes between one and three days to arrive, depending on how much you move around the lands of Skyrim. Once the note is received, sleep in any bed. * Note: For some reason, the bed cannot be in Windhelm (where you got the quest "Innocence Lost..." from Arentino). The Quest does continue as normal in any other bed in the game. Note: If you sleep in a bed after completing Innocence Lost, you will not begin this quest. Wait for a full day and you will receive the courier's message (it will happen without a note.) The Dragonborn will awake in an Abandoned Shack, located in the marshes north of Morthal. A Dark Brotherhood assassin named Astrid will speak to the Dragonborn. She reveals that the Dark Brotherhood is aware of their murderous deed and is pleased that Grelod is dead, but since the Aretino child performed the Black Sacrament, they demand that a debt be paid for the kill that was stolen from them. Astrid has brought three other people to the shack where the Dragonborn awoke. Fultheim the Fearless, Alea Quintus, and Vasha are tied up and wearing an execution hood, but able to answer questions. Astrid tells the Dragonborn that there is a contract out on one of their lives, and the Dragonborn must figure out who to kill. To join the Dark Brotherhood, kill any combination of the three. The Dragonborn will be rewarded with an initiation to the Brotherhood regardless of their choice. Alternatively, killing Astrid will close the option to join the Dark Brotherhood and a new quest, Destroy the Dark Brotherhood! will begin. The Abandoned Shack cannot be left without killing one of the three prisoners or Astrid. Kill Choices Each kill, including killing all three of the possible victims, invokes a different response from Astrid upon speaking to her afterwards. ''Killing the Khajiit: "The conniving Khajiit. Cat like that was sure to have enemies. It's no wonder you chose him." ''Killing the mother: "Ah, the feisty goodwife. Quite the mouth on her. Someone must have wanted her dead... right?" ''Killing the Nord warrior: "Oh ho. The whimpering Nord, eh? Yes, yes, I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. Interesting choice." ''Killing all three: "Well, well. Aren't we the overachiever. Three possibilities, three victims. Must have been one of them, right? So why take chances..." ''Killing the Khajiit and the mother: "Hmm. The fearless wife and mother, and the underhanded Khajiit. Had to be one of them, right? Interesting choice." ''Killing the Khajiit and the Nord warrior: : "The timid warrior and the sly Khajiit. Must have been one of them, right?" ''Killing the Nord warrior and the mother: : "The blubbering barbarian and the tenacious mother. Must have been one of them, right?" ''Killing Astrid "...Well...done." Notes *If you kill one of the victims and raise them as a zombie, when you talk to Astrid she will just say "Brother.". Then the only way to exit the shack is to kill Astrid. (Killing another victim and not raising them does not fix this) (On PC, used Dead Thrall on Fultheim the Fearless, to no ill effect. Perhaps this issue has been fixed?). *If using the "Clairvoyance" spell, the path leads to the Khajiit. Whether this is indication that he is the proper target, or it is due to the way the targets are arranged, is unclear. **Using clairvoyance on PC v1.4 leads to the woman. *If the courier doesn't appear after waiting a few days, sleep in a bed and the quest will continue. **Sometimes this can take several days, even with sleeping. **If the courier still does not appear, try fast traveling to a different hold and waiting. **If you don't accept the note from the courier (backing out of the conversation) then the Dark Brotherhood will send assassins after you. Also, if you sleep in a bed afterword, the quest With Friends Like These... will begin. *Taking the hoods off the victims will affect their ability to see the Dragonborn, but will not influence their dialogue or attitude (i.e. they will still speak in the same muffled manner and refer to being unable to see). *After you kill Astrid, if you speak with any of the prisoners but exit the dialogue without freeing them, they will respond with unmuffled voices, even though they are still hooded. *Killing a prisoner and leaving the shack before completing the quest will cause Astrid to teleport back to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary. **Astrid is either killable/unkillable. For some, she is unkillable within the sanctuary (if brought to zero HP her health bar disappears and she falls to one knee and rests for a bit only to get up back with full HP). For others Astrid is killable meaning she will not get back up. *You can kill Astrid using an arrow with posion. This will hurt her alot, then just stab her. Sneak up on the captives and put arrows in their inventory and take them back out for easy levelling the pick pocketing skill. *It's important to note that outside the Shack there are slaughterfish, making it (almost) impossible to fast travel from here. This forces you to run for a distance before you're able to fast travel. You can try to find a plot of land near the shack away from fish, but since they swim around your spot won't be predictable. *Before talking with Astrid you start the quest to join the Dark Brotherhood. So if you want to start the quest, Destroy the Dark Brotherhood, you should attack her as soon as your hands are free. *Sometimes Astrid will stop talking in middle of the coversation. **Just wait a few hours and she will. *There is a bookshelf one can get on top of inside the shack that is unreachable by Astrid. Crouch on top of it and make use of a bow and you she will run to the opposite corner leaving her open to projectile attack.